Abolitionism and Anti-Slavery

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Abolitionism and Anti-Slavery
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Outcome

• 3.8 examine the relationship between anti-slavery
  movements by enslaved Africans, abolitionists,
  free blacks

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Paradox A problem with logic

• Being Anti-Slavery did not necessarily make you a
  friend of the Slave.
• Americans opposed slavery for various reasons and
  used various methods in their opposition.
• Economics! Slavery worked in the south it did
  not in the north (Farming V. Industry!)

4
Southerners Lamenting Slavery

• In the early republic, even southerners
  questioned the future and morality of slavery
  (Like Washington)
• Evangelical influence (Second Great Awakening)
  blunted by 1820
• Southern abolitionism dies out about 1830-1832.
  Virginia assembly meets to discuss prospect / Nat
  Turners rebellion.

5
Abolition the Political Issue

• North vs. South in struggle for political mastery
• Political Abolitionism not so much opposed to
  slavery on moral grounds, but that the slave
  state voting bloc and 3/5s Compromise puts South
  in drivers seat.
• Focused on stopping the spread of slavery.
• Like red state/blue state politics

6
Abolition Politics as a Labor Issue

• By 1840s, Free Soil movement emerges
• White laboring classes (farmers, mechanics) who
  want to stop the spread of slavery
• They dont want to compete with unfree labor.
• They dont care about slavery where it already
  exists

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The political threat posed by containing slavery

• The South feared abolition movements that
  threatened to stop the spread of slavery because
  such movements would inhibit the Souths ability
  to maintain a political parity with the North
• In time, the South would become a political
  minority, and as such, subject to the whim of
  Northern will.
• For the South to defend slavery politically, it
  HAD to expand.

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The economic threat of containing slavery

• Stopping slaverys expansion eliminated (in
  theory) the market for future generations of
  slaves

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Abolition the Moral Issue

• By far the most threatening because it challenges
  the persistence of slavery where it exists.
• Far less common than political abolitionism

10
Intellectual Changes in the North Perfectionism

• New ways of thinking and ideals take root,
  particularly in New England 1820s 1830s
• Belief in reform and perfectability of mankind
• Temperance, anti-prostitution, and anti-slavery
• Involvement of women in moral crusade

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Moral Abolition

• The rise of William Lloyd Garrison
• Starts Liberator in 1831
• Calls for the immediate end to slavery
• Not only is slavery wrong, but slaveholders are
  immoral.
• Enrages slaveholders
• Enrages a lot of northerners too
• A minority view for many years

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William Lloyd Garrison
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Garrison and Southern Conceptions of Honor

• Garrison made abolitionism a personal attack upon
  the honor of southerners by charging them with a
  unconscionable crime.
• Undermines southern claims to honor and
  patriarchy
• Hardens defenses of slavery.
• Encourages the development of pro-slavery from
  southern intellectuals and clergy.

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Women and Moral Abolitionism

• As part of the antebellum periods move toward
  moral improvement, women become involved in
  abolitionism.
• Religious overtones
• The fictional Uncle Tom character
• The imperiling of white morality

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Northern Women

• Harriett Beecher Stowe and Uncle Toms Cabin
• Representative of white northern women from elite
  backgrounds who take up the cause of abolition.
• Both moral and emotional suasion

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Southern White Women

• The Grimke Sisters of South Carolina
• Become sought-after speakers
• Credibility as beneficiaries of slave system
• Focus Slaverys damage to white morality

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The Slave Narrative

• Harriett Jacobs and Incidents in the Life of a
  Slave Girl
• Shocking forcefulness
• Narrative of sexual exploitation

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Jacobs hiding place
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Imagery and Abolitionism
Some images did not need to be fabricated Here
an actual advertisement for the sale of slaves
strikes most normal modern observers as
inherently sinister.
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Imagery and Auctions
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Imagery and the limits of white compassion
Photograph of nearly white slave girl
auctioned by Henry Ward Beecher to raise funds
for abolitionist causes in Boston
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The Canadian movement

• Canada slavery abolished by order of the British
  Parliament 1834
• No act of Canadian parliament or legislation by
  Canadians was ever announced or recorded that
  ended slavery

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1793 Slave Act

• No one could be taken into slavery AND if a child
  was born into slavery they would be free on their
  25th birthday, anyone who was a slave before that
  would remain a slave
• This set the foundation for the Underground
  Railroad

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Canadian Motivations

• Western Expansion Canada need to open the west
  and needed immigrants, it made sense to make
  people want to earn money
• Immigrants Canada had more than enough people
  to work in the fields and factories it made
  sense to employ them
• Economy Ties to England, wanted to build
  relationship with industrial America
• Moral Some people believed slavery was wrong
  personally or against the demands of God

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Canadian resistance

• Attacks on Southern travelers to Toronto or
  Montreal
• Newspaper campaigns
• Open tolerance of the Underground Railroad at the
  US border refusals to search
• Open hostility to slave hunters from the US

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Canadian Abolitionists
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Limits of Canadian abolition

• Escapees - Canadian escaped slaves were treated
  harshly often beaten or locked in stocks
• Racism free black men and women paid less
• Segregation communities, schools, churches were
  separated by race
• Crime if another crime were committed in the
  process of escape the escaped slave could be
  returned to the US (Horse Thievery, Stealing,
  Resisting Arrest)